For Republicans, campaign finance reform was a nightmare from which they are only now awakening. After the campaign law, better known as McCain-Feingold, was enacted in 2002, Republicans largely ignored the new possibilities it created for affecting the outcome of elections. When the Supreme Court in 2003 upheld most of the provisions of the law, their apathy continued.
Democrats weren’t so passive. They immediately reacted to the new campaign spending rules by setting up a cluster of organizations outside the party that played an enormous role in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 campaigns. Republicans suffered through the three election cycles without countering the onslaught by the Democratic outfits. The 2006 and 2008 elections produced Democratic landslides.
But 2010 should be different. Spurred by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, Republicans have matched the Democratic infrastructure with organizations of their own. These groups expect to raise and spend tens of millions in this year’s midterm elections and probably even more in 2012, when President Obama is likely to be running for a second term.
Their effect could be pivotal. Republican prospects for winning House and Senate seats in November are the brightest since 1994. The new organizations have the potential to push the outcome toward a historic rout that puts Republicans in control of the House, Senate, a solid majority of governorships, and additional state legislatures. At the least, they’re positioned to offset the impact of Democratic groups.
What McCain-Feingold did was ban large donations of “soft money” to the Republican and Democratic national committees. But the money didn’t dry up. For Democrats, it moved to independent organizations, like MoveOn.org, with no limits on fundraising. Now, at long last, Republicans have started groups of their own:
• American Crossroads. It aims to do for Republican candidates what MoveOn, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, and Moving America Forward have done for Democrats for several cycles. The group was founded after donors to Republican and conservative causes were consulted to see if they were ready to make big contributions. The conclusion: They are. AC expects to raise around $50 million this year. It began operations last week. Its leader is Steve Law, a former deputy secretary of labor and a little-known but talented political strategist.
• American Action Network. This is a think tank founded two months ago and modeled after the Center for American Progress, which produces position papers and policy arguments for Democrats. It is run by former Republican senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota and fundraiser Fred Malek. AAN has a policy arm and an “action” unit run by Rob Collins, former chief of staff for House Republican whip Eric Cantor.
• Resurgent Republic. Founded last year, it is a Republican copy of Democracy Corps, the respected polling and research outfit run by Democrats Stanley Greenberg, James Carville, and Bob Shrum. RR is the creation of Whit Ayres, a leading Republican pollster, and Ed Gillespie, former Republican national chairman and a White House adviser to President George W. Bush. It does research, surveys, and focus groups to test issues and aid Republican candidates and officeholders.
• Republican State Leadership Committee. Gillespie recently became chairman of the freshly invigorated RSLC. Its aim is to support state legislative candidates, capture control of legislatures, and shape congressional redistricting based on the 2010 census in favor of Republicans. Its counterpart is the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. RSLC’s fundraising goal in 2010 is $40 million.
Republicans and conservatives have a sad history with independent expenditure organizations. They’ve launched many of them in the past, only to see them go out of business after one election. This time, the four groups were conceived as permanent fixtures in politics.
The arrival of American Crossroads is especially timely, given the turmoil at the Republican National Committee over its chairman, Michael Steele. The RNC’s job is to organize and finance so-called victory committees in each state. But its role will shrink if its own fundraising declines sharply. So far, Steele says that’s not a problem.
AC grew out of conversations Law had last year with Gillespie and Rove. Before starting the organization, Law ran the successful effort (so far) by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to thwart congressional passage of “card check,” organized labor’s pet project for unionizing workers without elections.
Law says AC is beginning operations now, seven months before the election, after “several things started to coalesce.” There’s “alarm” over the direction of the country, he says, and “an unprecedented opportunity to build on a [Republican] wave.” Plus, “there really is an urgent need to build viable, third party, political organizations on the conservative side. Democrats have done a very good job [on the liberal side].”
Rather than run national ads, AC will be active in individual races, tailoring TV spots to specific candidates. And Law is committed to avoiding a controversy that has plagued the RNC and other Republican organizations: lavish contracts for Republican consultants. He’s hired a small staff. To get campaign work at AC, consultants will have to submit to open bidding.
Law is planning for the long term. His ambition is to “build a model this year and expand on it for the presidential year in 2012. This year is round one.”
As nice as these Republican groups are, do they really matter? I think so. Money isn’t everything in politics, but it’s better to have as much spent on your behalf as your opponent has spent on his. And independent groups supporting Democrats offer a lot more than money. Just ask a Republican candidate who’s been assaulted by MoveOn.org ads.
Republicans haven’t peaked. “There’s a fever pitch of concern—fear and loathing—about what’s going on in Washington,” Law says. And it’s not dissipating. Republicans are already better organized for a national campaign than at any time in my memory. The new outside groups—the Four Horsemen of the Republican Landslide—are part of that.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
